When we marvel at how the Reagan Revolution heralded the dramatic rise of the rentier class, David Koch deserves a lion-sized share of the blame..

In the 1980 election won by Reagan, David H. Koch ran for Vice President (Libertarian) Already hugely wealthy, he obviously saw himself as a player.

And just like Billy Beane, who as a ball player was mediocre, Koch the ho-hum candidate turned out to be a superb General Manager of the Wichita Wingnut Counter Revolutionaries and their various farm teams.

Turned off to electoral politics (who wouldn't be?) he took the long view, and started building a multipart (think tanks, lobbying arms, astroturf contractors, etc ) farm system, directing a firehose sized flow of cash (over half a billion) "on spec", as it were.

First thing he did was provide the seed money for the CATO institute. And it's been forty years of hardball ever since.

He knows how to leverage wealth to produce satisfaction.: Wanting access to top-shelf ballet pussy (not that there's anything wrong with that...) he bought the house the ballet company lives in and became their landlord....("I think we can work out something about the rent, little lady..")

His major league players today, who include those recruited and organized through the American Legislative Exchange Council (A.L.E.C.) range from Herman Cain (who has been in the farm system for decades) to the recently disgraced and resigned Defense Secretary of the UK (Liam Fox), whose "ex-flatmate" has been on the A.L.E.C. pad for ten years. (I always remember ALEC as the guys carrying water for the private prison industry by writing "model penal codes" promoting overcriminalization and over incarceration to keep inventories of bodies high--yuk!)

We know that Koch can take the long view Ten years before a Conservative Government comes back into power, Koch money is spread so wide (follow the money...) that it finds itself in the pocket of an upper class Brit who is right next to a guy who will become Sec.of Defense.

And we must also acknowledge that Koch money is the yeast in Herman's pizza, which makes fascinating David's evident insouciance in re:Herman's entrepreneurial approach to getting laid. He had to have known about the settlements, and was willing to burn a bunch of money to set up the political issues for a later home run hitter.

This guy just might be the Lenin (M.I.T. B.Sc and M.Sc). of the counter revolution.

*Charles and David Koch also have been involved and have provided funding to a number of other think tanks and advocacy organizations: They provided initial funding for the Cato Institute,[19] they are key donors to the Federalist Society,[19] and also support the Mercatus Center, the Institute for Humane Studies, the Institute for Justice, the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, the Institute for Energy Research, the Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment, Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, the George C. Marshall Institute, the Reason Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute.[24][25]

As of 2011, David Koch sits on the board of directors of the Cato institute,[26] the Reason Foundation and Aspen Institute.[21]

[....] Last month, Jared Kushner announced the Administration’s support for the bill in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, writing that the six million Americans in local and federal prisons are included among “the forgotten men and women” that Trump vowed to fight for during his Presidential campaign.. “Get a bill to my desk, and I will sign it,” Trump promised. The House passed the bill this week.

President Trump on Thursday canceled a planned summit next month with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, citing “tremendous anger and open hostility” from the rogue nation in a letter explaining his abrupt decision.

“I feel it is inappropriate, at this time, to have this long-planned meeting,” Trump said to Kim in a letter released by the White House on Thursday morning.

The summit had been planned for June 12 in Singapore.

In his letter, Trump held open the possibility that the two leaders could meet at a later date to discuss denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, which Trump has been pushing.

"President Trump’s unprecedented meeting on Monday with the FBI director and deputy attorney general regarding a case in which he is directly involved may turn out to be the defining moment of his presidency and for his party. Bob Bauer at the Lawfare blog writes:

North Korea is threatening to reconsider Kim Jong Un’s participation in a summit with President Trump next month, saying it is up to the United States to decide whether it wants to “meet us at a meeting room or encounter us at nuclear-to-nuclear showdown.”

Stacey Abrams just one the Democratic Gubernatorial race in Georgia by roughly 3:1. She could become the first black and first female Governor of Georgia. It looks like the Republican candidate will be chosen after a runoff election since no one reached 50% of the vote.

Evans argued that Democrats could win by appealing to moderate Republicans. Abrams argued that the party needs to focus on disaffected Democrats. Abrams won. Abrams even won Democrats in northern Georgia with small minority populations.

Kendrick Lamar brought on a white fan onstage to rap along with his song “m.A.A.D. City”. When the fan rapped the song as written, repeating the N-word three times, Lamar halted the performance. He told the fan that she could not use the word. She apologized. He gave her a second chance. She almost rapped the word again, the crowd was not having it. Lamar ushered the fan off stage and continued the performance.

The audience responded negatively to the white fan using the words on stage. She lost the crowd with the first use of the words. Some did point out that she was just rapping the words as written.